• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.301-305
• /
• 1999

NiFe(60$\AA$)/Co(5$\AA$)/Cu(60$\AA$)/Co(30$\AA$) spin valve thin films were patterned into magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) cells by a conventional optical lithography process and their output and switching properties were characterized with respect to the cell size and geometry. When 1 mA of constant sense current was applied to the cells, a few or a few tens of mV of output voltage was measured within about 30 Oe of external magnetic field, which is an adequate output property for the commercializing of competitive MRAM devices. In order to resolve the problem of increase in the switching thresholds of magnetic layers with the downsizing of MRAM cells, a new approach using the controlled shape anisotropy was suggested and interpreted by a simple calculation of anisotropy energies of magnetic layers consisting of the cells. This concept gave a reduced switching threshold in NiFe(60$\AA$)/Co(5$\AA$) layer consisting of the patterned cells from about 15 Oe to 5 Oe and it was thought that this concept would be much helpful for the realization of competitive MRAM devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2010.02a
• /
• pp.448-448
• /
• 2010

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) has made a prominent progress in memory performance and has brought a bright prospect for the next generation nonvolatile memory technologies due to its excellent advantages. Dry etching process of magnetic thin films is one of the important issues for the magnetic devices such as magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs) based MRAM. CoFeB is a well-known soft ferromagnetic material, of particular interest for magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) and other devices based on tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR), such as spin-transfer-torque MRAM. One particular example is the CoFeB - MgO - CoFeB system, which has already been integrated in MRAM. In all of these applications, knowledge of control over the etching properties of CoFeB is crucial. Recently, transferring the pattern by using milling is a commonly used, although the redeposition of back-sputtered etch products on the sidewalls and the low etch rate of this method are main disadvantages. So the other method which has reported about much higher etch rates of >$50{\AA}/s$ for magnetic multi-layer structures using $Cl_2$/Ar plasmas is proposed. However, the chlorinated etch residues on the sidewalls of the etched features tend to severely corrode the magnetic material. Besides avoiding corrosion, during etching facets format the sidewalls of the mask due to physical sputtering of the mask material. Therefore, in this work, magnetic material such as CoFeB was etched in an ICP etching system using the gases which can be expected to form volatile metallo-organic compounds. As the gases, carbon monoxide (CO) and ammonia ($NH_3$) were used as etching gases to form carbonyl volatiles, and the etched features of CoFeB thin films under by Ta masking material were observed with electron microscopy to confirm etched resolution. And the etch conditions such as bias power, gas combination flow, process pressure, and source power were varied to find out and control the properties of magnetic layer during the process.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2004.06b
• /
• pp.419-422
• /
• 2004

A sensing scheme for current-mode magneto-resistance random access memory (MRAM) with a 1T1MTJ cell structure is proposed. Magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) resistance, which is HIGH or LOW, is converted to different cell currents during READ operation. The cell current is then amplified to be evaluated by the reference cell current. In this scheme, conventional bit line sense amplifiers are not required and the operation is less sensitive to voltage noise than that of voltage-mode circuit is. It has been confirmed with HSPICE simulations using a 0.35-${\mu}m$ 2-poly 4-metal CMOS technology.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2012.02a
• /
• pp.385-385
• /
• 2012

A two terminal N+/P/N+ junction device to replace the conventional selective transistor was studied as a bilateral switching device for spin transfer torque (STT) MRAM based on 3D device simulation. An N+/P/N+ junction structure with $30{\times}30nm$ area requires bi-directional current flow enough to write a data by a drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) under a reverse bias at N+/P (or P/N+ junction), and high current on/off ratio of 106. The SiGe materials are widely used in hetero-junction bipolar transistors, bipolar compensation metal-oxide semiconductors (BiCMOS) since the band gap of SiGe materials can be controlled by changing the fraction and the strain epilayers, and the drift mobility is increased with the increasing Ge content. In this work, N+/P/N+ SiGe material based junction provides that drive current is increased from 40 to $130{\mu}A$ by increased Ge content from 10~80%. When Ge content is about 20%, the drive current density of SiGe device substantially increased to 2~3 times better than Si-based junction device in case of 28 nm P length, which is sufficient current to operation of STT-MRAM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2011.02a
• /
• pp.168-168
• /
• 2011

정보화 사회가 도래함으로 개인별 정보 이용량이 급격히 증가하였고 스마트폰과 같은 모바일 기기의 개발로 정보 이용량이 최고치를 갱신 중이다. 이러한 흐름 속에 사람들은 빠른 처리 속도와 고도의 저장 능력을 요구하게 되고 이에 따라 새로운 Random Access Memory에 대한 연구가 활발히 진행되고 있다. 현재 Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)가 눈부신 발전과 성과를 이룩하고 있지만 전원 공급이 중단 될 경우 저장된 내용들이 지워진다는 단점을 가지고 있다. DRAM의 장점에 이러한 단점을 보완할 수 있는 차세대 반도체 소자로 주목 받고 있는 것이 Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM)이다. DRAM에서 Capacitor와 유사한 기능을 하는 MTJ stack은 tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) 현상을 나타내는 자기저항 박막을 이용하여 MRAM 소자에 집적된다. 본 연구에서는 MRAM의 자성 재료로 구성된 MTJ stack을 효과적으로 식각하고 우수한 식각 profile을 얻는 동시에 재증착의 문제를 해결하는데 목적을 둔다. 본 IrMn 자성 박막의 식각 연구는 유도결합 플라즈마 반응성 이온 식각 (Inductively Coupled Plasma Reactive Ion Etching: ICPRIE)법을 이용하여 진행되었다. 특히 본 연구에서는 종래의 $Cl_2$, $BCl_3$ 그리고 HBr과 같은 부식성 가스가 아닌 부식성이 없는 $CH_4$가스를 선택하여 그 농도를 변화시키면서 식각하였고 더 나아가 $O_2$를 첨가하면서 그 효과를 극대화하려고 시도하였다. IrMn 자성 박막의 식각 속도, TiN 하드 마스크에 대한 식각 선택도 그리고 profile 등이 조사되었고 최종적으로 X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)를 이용하여 식각 메카니즘을 이해하려고 하였다.

• Ceramist
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.35-46
• /
• 1999

GMR 재료의 응용은 매우 광범위하며 크게 세 분야로 대별할 수 있다. 첫째는 자기 재생 헤드로서 $10Gbit/in^2$ 이상의 고밀도 자기기록 기술에서는 필수 불가결한 재료이다. 둘째는 다양한 분야에 응용될 고감도 자기센서 분야이며, 셋째는 집접화된 자기저항메모리(MRAM) 분야이다. GMR 센서를 사용한 자기헤드는 이미 시판되고 있고 기존의 AMR 재료인 퍼멀로이에 비하여 3~20배 이상으로 신호준위가 크고 사용온도 범위에서 선형성 및 열적안정성도 우수한 것으로 보고되고 있다. MRAM의 경우에는 스핀밸브 GMR 및 TMR 소자를 사용한 연구가 한창 진행중이다. GMR 현상은 발견 된지 고작 10년 밖에 되지 않았으나 GMR 자기센서는 이미 상업적으로 개발되어 응용되고 있다. 이러한 실질적인 응용에 유리한 고지를 선점하고 있는 것은 이방성결합형 스핀밸브 다층박막 구조로서 그 내구성과 특성 향상을 위한 연구가 다양하게 시도되고 있다. GMR현상의 발견은 자성재료분야 연구 및 응용에 있어 새로운 전기를 마련하였으며 특히 자성과 이동현상이 연계된 분야로서 소위 "Magneto-electronics" 또는 "Spintronics" 라는 [51] 새로운 미래기술의 장이 열리고 있다. 현재의 반도체 중심의 "Microelectronics" 기술에서는 전자와 전자공공을 이용하는 기술이라면 "Magneto-electronics" 기술에서는 스핀${\uparrow}$ 및 스핀${\downarrow}$의 두 종류의 전자를 이용하게 된다. 자성체와 도체를 접목한 스핀 트랜지스터 또는 자성체와 반도체를 접목한 스핀-polarized FET(field effect transistor) 등의 새로운 개념의 magnetoelectronics 소자가 창출되고 있다. 따라서 자기이동 현상의 기초 연구, 재료 측면의 연구 및 헤드, MRAM, 센서 등의 응용기술연구가 국내에서 활발하게 이루어져 21세기 새로운 자성전자(magneto-electronics)소자 응용에 경쟁력을 키워야 할 것이다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2010.02a
• /
• pp.213-213
• /
• 2010

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM), based on magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and CMOS, is one of the best semiconductor memories because it can provide nonvolatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage and high storage density. For the realization of high density MRAM, the etching of MTJ stack with good properties is one of a key process. Recently, there has been great interest in the MTJ stack using MgO as barrier layer for its huge room temperature MR ratio. The use of MgO barrier layer will undoubtedly accelerate the development of MTJ stack for MRAM. In this study, high-density plasma reactive ion etching of MgO films was investigated in an inductively coupled plasma of $Cl_2$/Ar gas mixes. The etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile of this magnetic film were examined on vary gas concentration. As the $Cl_2$ gas concentration increased, the etch rate of MgO monotonously decreased and etch slop was slanted. The effective of etch parameters including coil rf power, dc-bais voltage, and gas pressure on the etch profile of MgO thin film was explored, At high coil rf power, high dc-bais voltage, low gas pressure, the etching of MgO displayed better etch profiles. Finally, the clean and vertical etch sidewall of MgO films was achieved using $Cl_2$/Ar plasma at the optimized etch conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.152-158
• /
• 1997

NiFeCo/ Cu /Co trilayers were formed on 4$^{\circ}$ tilt-cut Si(111) substrates with a Cu(50$\AA$) underlayer and large-scaled test magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) cells were fabricated using a conventional lithographic process. NiFeCo / Cu /Co trilayers deposited on the same templates without any applied magnetic field showed strong in plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy and excellent magnetoresistive (MR) properties such as high MR ration and sensitivity within a low external magnetic field, which are suitable properties for a MRAM application. In order to obtain optimized MR results in NiFeCo /Cu /Co trilayers, the thickness of Cu spacer was varied. Interlayer coupling between two magnetic layers was observed and it was found that the MR properties were strongly dependent on the coupling force, especially near 20 $\AA$ of Cu spacer thickness. Test MRAM cells were fabricated using the optimized NiFeCo (60$\AA$)/ Cu (25$\AA$)/ Co (30$\AA$) trilayer thin films. With a 10 mA of sense current and 5$\times$$10^5$ of word current, 10 mV of signal output was obtained, which implies the strong potentials of NiFeCo/ Cu /Co trilayer thin films for a MRAM application.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
• /
• v.26 no.6
• /
• pp.179-184
• /
• 2016

For an industrial spin-transfer torque (STT) MRAM, low switching current and high thermal stability are required, simultaneously. For this point of view, it is essential to find magnetic materials which satisfy high spin polarization and strong perpendicular magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA). In this paper, we investigate electronic structures and MCA energies of perovskite $CoFeX_3$ (X = O, F, S, Cl). For X = F and Cl, spin polarization at the Fermi level are 97 % and 96 %, respectively, which are close to a half metal. Furthermore, Co-terminated 5-monolayer (ML) $CoFeX_3$ (X = O, F, S, Cl) films show perpendicular MCA. In particular, the MCA energy of the Co-terminated $CoFeCl_3$ is about 1.0 meV/cell which is three times larger than that of a 5-ML CoFe film. Therefore, we expect to realize a magnetic material with high spin polarization and strong perpendicular MCA energy by utilizing group 6 and 7 elements in the periodic table, and to contribute to commercializing of the STT-MRAM.

• The Magazine of the IEIE
• /
• v.39 no.7
• /
• pp.40-47
• /
• 2012